Guest guest Posted June 29, 1999 Report Share Posted June 29, 1999 If you are discharging from acute and admitting to a rehab unit, with a separate billing account number, etc. I believe that you are technically doing an evaluation; time which does not get reflected in your PPS minutes. Even though it also sounds like the same therapist could be performing this function an hour later than the acute eval. Rintamaa, PT Operations Coordinator Lake Hospital System, Inc Painesville, OH jrintamaa@... Sangi, Carol wrote: > I would like very much if someone out there could clarify something for me > regarding documenting minutes on the MDS. > We have a small Transitional Care Unit here at our hospital with only an 8 > day stay. The majority of the patients come from the Acute Care side of the > hospital. All of the patients transfered to the TRCU have been on a PT > program in the hospital. It might be for one day, four days, and possibly > only for a few hours. At the present time when the patient is transfered to > the TRCU the therapists are doing a reevaluation on the patient. Can we > count this time as therapy time? > From the APTA it says " Reevaluations that are performed once a therapy > regimen is underway may be counted as minutes " Since the patients was on a > therapy regime over in the hospital can we count this time as therapy time? > Thank you in advance for your help > Carol Spielholz Sangi > Director,Therapy Services > Bayonne Hospital NJ. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager > - Simplifying group communications ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager - Simplifying group communications Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 29, 1999 Report Share Posted June 29, 1999 Original Message ------------------------------- If you are discharging from acute and admitting to a rehab unit, with a separate billing account number, etc. I believe that you are technically doing an evaluation; time which does not get reflected in your PPS minutes. Even though it also sounds like the same therapist could be performing this function an hour later than the acute eval. Rintamaa, PT Operations Coordinator Lake Hospital System, Inc Painesville, OH jrintamaa@... Sangi, Carol wrote: > I would like very much if someone out there could clarify something for me > regarding documenting minutes on the MDS. > We have a small Transitional Care Unit here at our hospital with only an 8 > day stay. The majority of the patients come from the Acute Care side of the > hospital. All of the patients transfered to the TRCU have been on a PT > program in the hospital. It might be for one day, four days, and possibly > only for a few hours. At the present time when the patient is transfered to > the TRCU the therapists are doing a reevaluation on the patient. Can we > count this time as therapy time? > From the APTA it says " Reevaluations that are performed once a therapy > regimen is underway may be counted as minutes " Since the patients was on a > therapy regime over in the hospital can we count this time as therapy time? > Thank you in advance for your help > Carol Spielholz Sangi > Director,Therapy Services > Bayonne Hospital NJ. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager > - Simplifying group communications ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager - Simplifying group communications Reply Message -------------------------- : Do your therapists perform a formal re-evaluation under the circumstances described? If so do you have a reference as to why this would need to be done? We generally do not re-eval transfers to our TCS unit if the patient has undergone an evaluation in our acute hospital within the last 48 hours. While one could argue that a therapist reevaluates every time they treat a patient; when duplication of services and/or lack of reimbursement are part of the equation, we need to re-think how we are using (expending?) our " formal " evaluation time. Trager, PT Rehabilitation Services Manager rtrager@... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager - Simplifying group communications Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 29, 1999 Report Share Posted June 29, 1999 Here in Oklahoma, we checked with our fiscal intermediary and they did not want us to do another evaluation in skilled when one had just been done in acute. We copy the initial eval and refer to it, updating goals and interventions as needed. Sherry Lyall, PT, MPH Director Rehab Services Acute & Outpatient 744-3035; page 88-031 slyall@... Re: PPS MINUTES Original Message ------------------------------- If you are discharging from acute and admitting to a rehab unit, with a separate billing account number, etc. I believe that you are technically doing an evaluation; time which does not get reflected in your PPS minutes. Even though it also sounds like the same therapist could be performing this function an hour later than the acute eval. Rintamaa, PT Operations Coordinator Lake Hospital System, Inc Painesville, OH jrintamaa@... Sangi, Carol wrote: > I would like very much if someone out there could clarify something for me > regarding documenting minutes on the MDS. > We have a small Transitional Care Unit here at our hospital with only an 8 > day stay. The majority of the patients come from the Acute Care side of the > hospital. All of the patients transfered to the TRCU have been on a PT > program in the hospital. It might be for one day, four days, and possibly > only for a few hours. At the present time when the patient is transfered to > the TRCU the therapists are doing a reevaluation on the patient. Can we > count this time as therapy time? > From the APTA it says " Reevaluations that are performed once a therapy > regimen is underway may be counted as minutes " Since the patients was on a > therapy regime over in the hospital can we count this time as therapy time? > Thank you in advance for your help > Carol Spielholz Sangi > Director,Therapy Services > Bayonne Hospital NJ. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager > - Simplifying group communications ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager - Simplifying group communications Reply Message -------------------------- : Do your therapists perform a formal re-evaluation under the circumstances described? If so do you have a reference as to why this would need to be done? We generally do not re-eval transfers to our TCS unit if the patient has undergone an evaluation in our acute hospital within the last 48 hours. While one could argue that a therapist reevaluates every time they treat a patient; when duplication of services and/or lack of reimbursement are part of the equation, we need to re-think how we are using (expending?) our " formal " evaluation time. Trager, PT Rehabilitation Services Manager rtrager@... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager - Simplifying group communications ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager - Simplifying group communications Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 6, 1999 Report Share Posted July 6, 1999 : My apologies for the confusion. It seems to me that your reply is in reference to documentation to charts (i.e.- formal evaluations), in which case I would agree with you and Sherry. To avoid duplication etc.; we do utilize the acute PT evaluation with transfer to a " skilled rehab " unit, documenting by exception, re-defining goals, plans, etc. However, Carol's original query was into documentation of PPS Minutes. It is my understanding, from the Federal Register, that there is some semblance of a " formal " evaluation performed upon resident arrival to the unit, and that when documenting PPS minutes to the MDS form " evaluation " minutes do not count toward RUG classification. Therefore, on our unit, not all first-visit minutes count toward RUG classification. Reference is Federal Register as reviewed by hospital law firm. If you have references as to submitting all minutes without entering the fraud arena, would love to see and pass on. As per recent HCFA chart audit, we feel this is correct. Hope this is more clear, and thanks for your input. Rintamaa, PT Lake Hospitals Painesville, OH Trager, wrote: > Original Message > ------------------------------- > If you are discharging from acute and admitting to a rehab unit, with a > separate > billing account number, etc. I believe that you are technically doing an > evaluation; time which does not get reflected in your PPS minutes. Even > though > it also sounds like the same therapist could be performing this function > an hour > later than the acute eval. > > Rintamaa, PT > Operations Coordinator > Lake Hospital System, Inc > Painesville, OH > jrintamaa@... > > Sangi, Carol wrote: > > > I would like very much if someone out there could clarify something for > me > > regarding documenting minutes on the MDS. > > We have a small Transitional Care Unit here at our hospital with only > an 8 > > day stay. The majority of the patients come from the Acute Care side > of the > > hospital. All of the patients transfered to the TRCU have been on a PT > > program in the hospital. It might be for one day, four days, and > possibly > > only for a few hours. At the present time when the patient is > transfered to > > the TRCU the therapists are doing a reevaluation on the patient. Can > we > > count this time as therapy time? > > From the APTA it says " Reevaluations that are performed once a therapy > > regimen is underway may be counted as minutes " Since the patients was > on a > > therapy regime over in the hospital can we count this time as therapy > time? > > Thank you in advance for your help > > Carol Spielholz Sangi > > Director,Therapy Services > > Bayonne Hospital NJ. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager > > - Simplifying group communications > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager > - Simplifying group communications > > Reply Message > -------------------------- > : Do your therapists perform a formal re-evaluation under the > circumstances described? If so do you have a reference as to why this > would need to be done? We generally do not re-eval transfers to our TCS > unit if the patient has undergone an evaluation in our acute hospital > within the last 48 hours. While one could argue that a therapist > reevaluates every time they treat a patient; when duplication of > services and/or lack of reimbursement are part of the equation, we need > to re-think how we are using (expending?) our " formal " evaluation time. > Trager, PT > Rehabilitation Services Manager > rtrager@... > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager > - Simplifying group communications ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: /group/ptmanager - Simplifying group communications Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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